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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amy J who wrote (281067)	3/21/2006 7:54:00 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573432

Amy, re: The basis of the opinion on demographics savings is a report that indicated Gen Y is as large as BB, however, they are many years away from retiring and yet were saving more as a % than BB at the same corresponding age. A separate report indicated that Gen Y have no expectations a corporation will pay for their retirement through a pension, however, the report said a surprising number of BB actually do think this to be the case. The world HAS changed a lot. The BB's were raised with promises that corp's WOULD pay a pension. For most of their lives, there were no 401K plans, no tax advantaged savings plans at all. And for most of their lives there was no talk that Social Security wouldn't be around, or that benefits would be cut. Remember we've been paying in our entire lives. The BB's are caught between the promises of their youth and the realities of a country that has shifted it's priorities from benefiting workers to share holders. re: This might be why you and I have a different opinion. The savings report indicated prior generations demographically saved more than the BB. The BB seem to be the only generation out of the ones mentioned in this report that is saving less as a %, at correspondingly the same age points. You have me at a disadvantage... do you have a link to the report? re: Another $40T is estimated to pay off govt debt (existing IOUs the govt pays back, tax cuts) and that could get out of control. So, the biggest two financial issues (remember this is a financial discussion about this country's future), is the retirement of the BB (40T) and funding the govt debt (60T). This gets into all sorts of issues, and to it justice you have to address each one separately. And that could go on for pages, so I don't think we want to get into the minutiae. One is the funny numbers issue. Remember that SS receipts have been counted as general revenue since about 1970. The other bigger problem is Medicare, and the fact that our under performing health care system costs about twice as much as any other country. re: On a completely separate note, I'd feel much better if Congress was packed full of people of all sorts of ages. Did you know there is only one Congressional leader that's in his 80s - can you imagine what that age group must feel like to have no one represent them? I think each generation should have the same representation in Congress. For example, when the BB do retire, I do not think it would be right if Gen X and Gen Y made up Congress in totality to the exclusion of representation of the BB. I'm a huge believer in having the diversity actually be in the room making the decisions with everyone. I agree that Congress should look different, not only in age and gender but also in economic status. (Right now it's like the Stepford Congress they all look alike). But how do you get there? Do you have a specific plan? I think publicly funded elections would allow a lot more people, with a lot of different backgrounds to run for national office. Right now each political party has a farm system, and with the help of special interests they filter the candidates and only the conformist clones make it through the to run for higher office. They look good, talk good and do what they are told. With gerrymandered districts, they are assured of winning... so the special interests get their money's worth. John